Brooks Kerr
Brooks Kerr ( * as Chester Monson Brooks Joseph Kerr III, December 26, 1951 in New Haven, Connecticut) is an American jazz pianist.
Life and work
Kerr is blind and is considered a piano prodigy (taught at the Child Study Center at Yale University and at the Foote School in New Haven ); for the first time at age nine, he joined as a pianist in public. For the study, he went to the Juilliard School ( to 1972 ) and at the Manhattan School of Music. He also took lessons from 1958 Willie "The Lion" Smith ( with whom he later worked often together) and Luckey Roberts. An admirer and connoisseur of the work of Duke Ellington, he recorded in the 1970s with several former members of the Duke Ellington Orchestra, as with Sonny Greer and Russell Procope ( with whom he had a band to play in clubs in Greenwich Village ). He also played with the Ex - Ellington Orchestra members Paul Gonsalves, Francis Williams and Ray Nance and others at Ellington Tribute projects. Kerr also had connections with Ellington himself by assisting him on a week-long seminar at the University of Wisconsin in 1972 and for him at a performance of the third Sacred Concert 1974 deputized.
Under his own name Kerr played for Famous Door 1974 first album, in which he led a quartet that Gene Ramey and Sam Woodyard consisted of Paul Quinichette. It was followed by a session for Chiaroscuro Records in 1975 with duets with Sonny Greer, and finally 1981-82 several tribute albums ( on the label Blue Wail ), dedicated to Duke Ellington, Fats Waller and Irving Berlin. In the field of jazz, he participated 1974-1982 in five recording sessions.
He works a lot as a teacher ( private tuition) and lives in New York City.
Discography
- With the Paul Quinichette Quartet Prevue, Famous Door 1974
- Soda Fountain Rag, Chiaroscuro Records 1975
- Kerr Salutes Waller
- Kerr Salutes Berlin
- Kerr Salutes Ellington
Lexical entry
- Carlo Bohländer et al Reclams Jazz guide, 1989